The Tissue Culture Core Laboratory was developed to provide stable and consistent technical expertise to investigators of all projects and to accommodate the expected increased need to stabilize the sources of materials required by all. The obvious advantage of the Tissue Culture Core is that of having a skilled technical staff dedicated to a specific activity in a situation in which each patient-derived tissue is precious. Because the Tissue Culture Core facility will grow fibroblasts from the skin of EB patients there will also be an ongoing source of DNA for the linkage studies. This core facility will be under the direction of Dr. Marvin Karasek and the day-to-day tasks of the core will be carried out by Wayne Giomi, technician. The Tissue Analysis Core facility will be limited to a small amount of routine histology and to electron microscopy. Both of these functions will be directed by Dr. Bruce Smoller and performed in the Department of Pathology.